A student team from Bellingham Technical College’s Culinary Art Program took the silver medal at an American Culinary Federation competition in Reno, Nev., on March 12-13.
The college’s team, which represented the Washington State Chefs Association, placed third overall out of a field of 11 teams.
“Our student hot-food team worked above and beyond, attending classes, working regular jobs, and devoting many hours of extra time on team practices and development,” BTC culinary arts instructor and team coach Michael Baldwin said, in an April 3 press release. “These students really came together as a team and performed at a very high level. We are proud of their dedication and success on this extremely competitive format,”
The competition consisted of three phases: cold-food presentation, skills and cooking.
During the cooking phase, teams prepared four portions of a fish starter, salad and dessert of their choice along with a pre-assigned classical entree. A panel of judges determined the winning team.
Student teams were made up of five members, including one alternate student who kept the team on track and managed the time and equipment. BTC’s team was led by captain Elizabeth Vincent, and included Colleen Glaser, Immanuel Di Nicola, Whitney Worrell and Oleg Vetko.
“BTC is very proud of these students and their capabilities. Our culinary arts program has been recognized as a national resource for culinarians. This award is testament that BTC is among the very best, and we are looking forward to enhancing this program as we open our new campus center later this spring,” said BTC president Patricia McKeown. “This facility has a new state-of-the-art teaching kitchen, one of the finest culinary instructional spaces in the country and a full service, beautifully designed program operated restaurant. These elements will allow BTC to continue to provide a renowned high quality culinary arts education.”
